Gold of the Wise Men

Preached on 12-24-00

THE GOLD OF THE WISE MEN

A Christmas Family Sermon by the Rev. Patrick A. Rose

"And when they had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh." (Matt. 2:11)

IN OUR FIRST READING FROM THE WORD we read something that was written down about 1400 years before the Lord was born. It was a prophecy of the Lord's birth. It told of how one day the Lord was going to come -- one day the Lord Himself would be born on earth. And it said that when the Lord was born, there would be a star. A star would come out of Jacob (Num. 24:17). And so it was that long before the Lord was born, people already knew that a star would be a sign that the Lord was born.

The wise men knew about this. When they saw a special star appear in the sky, they knew what this star meant. It was a sign, a sign which told them that somewhere here on earth the Lord had been born. Not only this, they knew that the Lord, when He was born, would be born somewhere in the land of Judea.

And so the wise men got ready for a journey. They wanted to go and see the Lord. And so they set off on a journey to the city of Jerusalem. Jerusalem was the capital of Judea. It was a long journey. The wise men lived in a country called Syria, and they probably traveled somewhere around 160 miles, which was a long way indeed to travel in those days. When they got to Jerusalem they started asking people if they knew where the Lord had been born. They knew the Lord was coming to earth as a king, and so they asked people if they knew where the King of the Jews had been born.

When the king of Judea, a man called Herod, heard about this -- when he heard that another king had been born -- he asked the chief priests if they knew where the Lord was. And the priests told Herod that in the Word -- in one of the prophets -- it had been written that the Lord would be born in Bethlehem. And so Herod then called for the wise men, and told them that they would find the Lord in Bethlehem. Herod was a very evil king -- he wanted the wise men to find the Lord so that they could come back and tell him where the Lord was. Then he could kill the Lord. The wise men didn't know this, though, and they left Jerusalem, and set off towards Bethlehem. It was another five miles or so. And as they were traveling, they saw the star in the sky again, and the star moved in front of them, and then stopped in the sky, stopped right over where the Lord was. And the wise men found the Lord and they worshiped Him.

Now when you worship the Lord -- when you pray to Him -- you get down on your knees, don't you? You kneel when you say your prayers. The wise men didn't just kneel, though. They kneeled down, and they then actually laid down on the ground before the baby Lord. And then they gave presents to the Lord. They gave Him some gold, they gave Him some frankincense, and they gave Him some myrrh. They then left for the long journey home; and they went straight back home because the Lord had warned them in a dream not to go back to Herod.

Now why did the wise men travel all this way? It wasn't just because they wanted to see the Lord. They had not just come to see the Lord. They had also come to worship Him. When they got to Jerusalem and asked people if they knew where the Lord was, they told people that is why they had come. They had come to worship Him. The wise men knew just how important it is to worship the Lord.

And this is why they gave the Lord those special presents. They gave Him gold. Gold is a very rare, expensive and beautiful metal. They gave Him frankincense. Frankincense is a precious type of incense -- it makes a beautiful smell when it is burned. And they gave Him myrrh, which is a precious ointment with a very special smell.

And the wise men knew that each of these gifts had something to do with the worship of the Lord. They stood for things that must be inside of someone -- things that must be in a person's heart and mind -- when he comes to worship the Lord.

If somebody wants to worship the Lord then he has to be willing to do what the Lord commands. There is almost no point at all in worshiping the Lord if you aren't interested in obeying His commandments. And that is what the myrrh stood for. Myrrh was a precious ointment that was put on people's bodies, and it stood for the things that you are to do with your body -- the things that the Lord wants you to do when you obey His commandments.

And if a person wants to worship the Lord then he also has to be willing to learn from the Lord's Word. One of the reasons you worship the Lord is so that you can listen to His Word, and learn what the Lord has to say to you in His Word. If somebody isn't interested in learning from the Word, then he can't really worship the Lord. And this is what the frankincense stands for. It stands for loving the truth of the Lord's Word. When you learn from the Word, then your thoughts can go upwards towards the Lord and towards heaven, just as the beautiful smoke of incense goes up in the air.

But if someone obeys the Lord's commandments, and if he learns from the Lord's Word, then he must do this because he loves the Lord. If a person is to worship the Lord, then, first of all, he must want to love the Lord. He must want to love the Lord in his heart. And this is what gold stands for. Gold stands for loving the Lord. Gold is a metal that is very, very precious. And it stands for something in the heart that is very, very precious. It stands for love, love of the Lord. And so, if you want to worship the Lord, then you must want to love the Lord. This is the most important thing of all. And this is why the very first gift that the wise men gave the Lord was gold.

You can't worship the Lord unless you want to love Him, because this is what worship is. Worship is, at heart, a way of showing the Lord that you love Him. That is why the wise men traveled so far. They journeyed all the way from Syria because they loved the Lord. And when they lay down on the ground before the Lord, it was a way of showing the Lord that they loved Him more than anything else. They put themselves on the ground in front of the baby Lord to show Him that they knew He was more important than they were. He was more important than anybody. They loved Him -- they loved the baby Lord -- more than anything else in the whole world.

And that is why, after they had worshiped Him, they gave Him this gold. At that time gold was the most precious metal, the most valuable metal, that people knew about. And when the wise men gave the Lord this gold, they were showing the Lord how much they loved Him. They loved Him with all their hearts.

Today we also are worshiping the Lord. We are celebrating the time when the Lord came down to earth as a little baby -- when He came down so that He could be close to us. The Lord came down to earth because He loves us. And so we need to love the Lord in return. This is why we worship the Lord. We worship the Lord to show Him that we love Him. We worship the Lord to show Him that we love Him with all our hearts. And to give the Lord your love, is the most important gift you can give Him, because love is like spiritual gold.

This is the gift, above all, that you should not forget this Christmas time. There are lots of presents at Christmas, aren’t there? And these presents are signs of love. People give other people presents as a way of saying that they love one another. And this is good. But more important than all these gifts is the present that you give the Lord, the present that you give Him on His birthday. And that gift is to be found in your heart. It is the gift of love. Love the Lord with all your heart. Love Him with all your mind. Love Him wth all your body, because He is our God and our Savior.

Amen.

Lessons: Num. 24:12-19; Mt. 2:1-12; AC 9293:3